Recent research indicates that severely retarded adolescents cannot readily see the equivalence of an object and a colored photograph of the object. This limitation in ability to interpret pictures has therapeutic significance in view of the widespread use of pictographic stimuli in educational programs for the retarded. The present research provides further tests of this surprising inability of the severely retarded to read pictures. An attempt is also made to remediate this deficiency through the adoption of the special training techniques of fading. If successful, the outcome will provide those who train severely retarded individuals with an estimate of the minimum number of fading steps necessary to train a generalized an well-remembered ability to see the equivalence of photographs and objects.